Thursday, July 2, 2009

I really enjoyed driving this 1968 L88 Corvette. I was going to write "this wild 1968 L88 Corvette" but that would have been redundant; every L88 is wild.

Thanks to its telescopic steering column, I was able to position the wheel close enough to use it as leverage for depressing the clutch pedal, the primary consideration in driving this car.

Once the engine warms and you are on your lumping thumping way, you know in the blink of an eye that the L88 is a bottomless fount of unrelenting power. At speed, the clutch effort lightens considerably thanks to all the adrenalin suddenly coursing through your veins, an elegant bit of engineering.

There really is nothing like the L88 Corvette. It will slam you back in your seat as if hit from behind by a Kenworth and thrill you with its big-bore basso profundo roar.

It's America's very own vintage race car, a production beast that has beaten all comers.

Here are a couple of the photos I took of the 1967 Sting Ray GM styling chief Bill Mitchell had specially built for his wife Marian. It has a 400hp 427 Tri Power and drives like a dream. My article on this car for the Mecum Bloomington Gold Auction is here.

Any Corvette enthusiast will tell you there is no better way to spend a sunny afternoon than cruising around town in a Sting Ray convertible with the top down. But when that town is Newport Beach, CA and the car is this stunning 1967 Ermine White Tri Power convertible, that sunny afternoon is exceptional indeed. And when its owner is along for the ride to tell the car’s story as we rumble around Lido Isle, one gets the full sense of its incredible significance in Corvette history.